


Liberation

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Boot Worship, Boot polishing, M/M, sort of, vague discussions of dom/sub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 05:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This started out as boot kink, but that isn't what the completed product ended up as.<br/>Grantaire and Enjolras, alone in the backroom of the Café Musain, discuss various matters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liberation

“ _Anything. I’ll black your boots_.” The words rang in Enjolras’ ears, and later on, he thought of those words in the Café Musain. Grantaire had said the words in a mocking tone, as he often mocked Enjolras, but there’d been truth in them that had struck Enjolras hard.

Grantaire mocked Enjolras’ boots at every opportunity he could grasp, and Enjolras was fairly certain of his reason why. “You’d degrade yourself for me?” The Café was empty. Courfeyrac and Combeferre had gone home, Feuilly and Bahorel had left together. Joly and Bossuet hadn’t joined them at all last night, busy with Musichetta, and Marius was having a dinner of sorts with Cosette and her father. 

Jehan, as always, was a mystery.

Grantaire looked up from where he was packing away his dominoes, his eyebrows raising. “Pardon?”

"You’d black my boots?" 

"I’d black them, I’d clean them." Grantaire’s eyes moved down Enjolras’ body, fixing on his boots. "You don’t clean them enough, as is." Enjolras curled his lip.

"I suggest you go and get some polish and a cloth then." Grantaire moved to his own bag, and to Enjolras’ surprise, produced a cloth and a tin of bootpolish.

"You keep that in your  _bag_?”

"What can I say? I was a boyscout." Enjolras stood, and Grantaire dropped to his knees with no ceremony made about it. "Put your foot on my knee." Enjolras did, leaning with his weight a little, but Grantaire made no complaint. He was quick and skilled with the cloth, buffing at Enjolras’ shoes.

"You’ve done this before."

"Not to you." Grantaire murmured, taking the polish and beginning to work with it until Enjolras’ boot was shining. 

"But you’ve done this before."

"A dozen times." Grantaire inhaled deeply as he started on the next boot. 

"You like the smell?"

"Do you want me to do this or not?" Grantaire bit out, glaring up at Enjolras, and Enjolras swallowed hard. 

"You shouldn’t- You shouldn’t be so willing to do this." Enjolras said in a quiet tone. "Isn’t it  _degrading_?”

"Perhaps I like to be degraded."

"No one likes to be degraded."

"There is evidently much you do not understand. As usual." Grantaire added as an afterthought, and Enjolras stared at him. Grantaire paused, buffing the boot in front of him with an expression of deep thought. "It can be liberating."

"How can degradation be liberating?"

"It is liberating as consensual submission is liberating. There is freedom to be found in taking a good man’s orders." Enjolras’ lips parted.

"Is there?"

"There is."

"Do you- do you find that in m-"

"All done." Grantaire said, lifting Enjolras’ foot and setting it down on the ground. He stood and walked away, putting away the polish and his cloth. 

"Am I a good man?" Enjolras asked in a small whisper, looking part terrified at the idea. 

"You’re a great man."

"Those aren’t the same thing."

"They’re not." Grantaire agreed. He took steps to come closer.

"Do I inspire that?" Enjolras asked, his eyes scanning Grantaire’s face, and Grantaire grinned at him, reaching up to pat his shoulder.

"You inspire many things." He pulled Enjolras down to his level, pressing a quick kiss to his lips before pulling back. Enjolras’ hand moved up to trace his own mouth, and he stared at Grantaire for a few moments. 

"I’m glad." Enjolras managed to get out after a few moments. 

"Come home with me." Grantaire requested, letting his hand moved to the other’s hip. 

"Grantaire-"

"I live closer than you, my bed is large, my mattress comfortable." Grantaire’s hand traced over the jut of Enjolras’ hip under the white cloth of his shirt. "The nights are cold: it’s warmer to share a bed." Enjolras dipped and grabbed at Grantaire’s hair, pulling him into another kiss.

He wasn’t sure what he was doing, not entirely, but when Grantaire deepened the kiss, he let the shorter man lead him into it. “I haven’t done this before.”

"Doesn’t matter." Grantaire murmured. "You inspire me to teach." Enjolras’ lips twitched into an almost smile. Grantaire reached out, as if to trace Enjolras’ lips with his thumb, but he froze.

"Do you permit it?"

Enjolras reached for Grantaire’s hand and pulled it closer, laying it on Enjolras’ own jaw, and Grantaire’s smile was radiant, beautiful, and it stirred something in Enjolras’ chest, in his very heart.

"Come home with me." Grantaire said again, and Enjolras nodded, letting Grantaire lead him to the door.


End file.
